The McPherson boys 4x100 meter relay team had the performance of the afternoon in Class 4A, highlighting the first full day of the State Track and Field Championships Friday.

The Bullpup foursome of Chris Stoppel, Collin Harvey, Austin O’Bannon and Kyler Kinnamon finished in a pace-setting 43.17 in the second Class 4A heat, with the race coming down to the wire with Kansas City Piper’s team. Kinnamon used a last-second burst of speed to pull ahead just far enough to win by five hundredths of a second.

The Bullpups will be the top seed in this afternoon’s final, which runs at approximately 3:30 p.m. at Wichita State University’s Cessna Stadium.

The Smoky Valley girls also will be well represented in today’s finals, as junior Taylor Tiani and freshman Ashley Finney qualified in the 400 dash and the 300 hurdles, respectively.

Tiani made the finals after finishing seventh in the preliminaries with a time of 1:00.21. Finney was fifth in her prelims with a time of 47.95 seconds.

McPherson High senior Meredith Hess missed the final cut-off in the 200 dash by a tenth of a tenth of a second, coming in ninth with a time of 27.24.

McPherson thrower Ivanna Moyer had a top-10 finish in the discus, coming in 10th with a throw of 104 feet, 11 inches.

More athletes will be competing today for both the Bullpups and the Vikings. McPherson’s Chris Stoppel will participate in the 100 dash preliminaries at 9:15 a.m., while teammate Christina Wankum will run in the 1,600-meter at 1:44 p.m. The Smoky Valley 4x800 relay team of Emily Deterding, Sophia Peterson, Allison Rose and Telea Peterson will go at 11:05 a.m.

In field events, a trio of Bullpups compete today, starting with sophomore Bri Cooks in the shot put at 9:45 a.m. Alissa Becker will participate in the javelin throw at 1:15 p.m., the same time Keshawn Sewell seeks a triple jump gold medal.

A full listing of events featuring local athletes can be found in the scoreboard.

After the first day of competition, Paola was sitting in first in the girls team competition with 23 points. Tonganoxie was second with 16.

For the boys, Ottawa had a commanding lead over LaCynge-Prairie View, 38-18. Baldwin was third with 16 points.